NewsCuthttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut
Reflections and observations on the news
Fri, 24 May 2019 20:50:45 +0000 en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1At the baseball stadiums, patriotism is always on salehttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/at-the-baseball-stadiums-patriotism-is-always-on-sale/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/at-the-baseball-stadiums-patriotism-is-always-on-sale/#respondFri, 24 May 2019 20:50:45 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80860It’s Memorial Day weekend, the annual tradition in which sports teams and businesses can cash in on the sacrifice of soldiers.

Nick Francona, the son of Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona, says he put together a document when he worked for some Major League Baseball teams on how this could be done the right way: stop making it so obvious you’re just trying to sell stuff. Like this:

Francona, whose bona fides include a tour in Afghanistan as a marine, tells Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas it’s patently offensive to the military. Or should be.

It’s like, really? That is so tone-deaf. I mean, that is just patently offensive, to suggest that that’s even approaching anything like a dignified way to memorialize people. And now it’s not just camouflage caps and jerseys — you have the camouflage eye black, the cleats, the socks, the arm sleeves. It’s turning into dress-up at Halloween. And what you don’t see, through any of this, is any acknowledgment of “This is so-and-so who died. This is their name and their story.” These are real people who died, they have families left behind. And when you actually talk to the families, they care about their lost loved ones’ stories and keeping their names alive. They don’t care about camouflage.

And it’s not just the camo itself — it’s how it’s presented. When you have to really dig and find the fine print that says they’re donating the proceeds — and even then, the fine print is basically “Take our word for it, we’re donating to charity” — that’s problematic. Nobody would look at that and say it looks like a benevolent charitable campaign.

How much of the cost of a jersey or hat actually goes to a charity benefitting the military and its veterans? Major League Baseball won’t say, Francona says.

It might well be they don’t know where the money goes.

“From the best I can tell, for a while it was being done through the McCormick Foundation, which had a program called Welcome Back Veterans,” he said. “But when I started digging into it, what I found is that Welcome Back Veterans is basically a phrase and a program, but there’s no entity, no organization, no board — nothing by that name. And I asked MLB, “Who’s in charge of this? Who runs Wecome Back Veterans?” And they had no earthly idea, because there isn’t anyone in charge. It’s not a registered entity — it’s just a tag line.”

How could this be done better?

Be transparent about where the money goes. And have it go to charities that plainly exist.

One that I particularly like is the Travis Manion Foundation. The guy it’s named after, Travis Manion, was a Marine lieutenant who was killed in Iraq. And one of the things they do is help veterans participate and play meaningful roles in their communities, and really bridge the gap between the military and civilians. And one thing I love about them is that it’s not limited to veterans — civilians can go join that as well. That gets to the bigger picture of what I think is missing in a lot of this discussion, creating that bridge between the military and society. Like, instead of supporting our troops by buying a hat, how about if we support them by being educated voters on the issues that affect them.

Francona, for the record, isn’t buying the notion that Major League Baseball has turned the corner from profiting off dead soldiers.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction. But to me it’s nakedly transparent that they wouldn’t have made this change if they hadn’t come up with this other holiday, Armed Forces Day, that lets them sell camo stuff,” he tells Lukas. “So I don’t think the folks at MLB sat down and said, ‘How do we appropriately celebrate Memorial Day?’ I think it was more like, ‘How do we sell camouflage hats and get away with it, now that we’ve been criticized for how we handle Memorial Day?’”

Shannon, of Stoughton, Mass., has breast cancer and recently doctors found a mass on her pancreas and she really shouldn’t waste any time having surgery to remove it.

But the Boston Bruins are playing for the Stanley Cup and, somehow, she convinced her surgeon at Mass General Hospital to wait until after the playoff series is over.

“I met with my surgeon who was not happy with me but I explained to him it cannot be until the Stanley Cup was over,” McCarthy told WBZ. “I was like, I can’t. It’s the playoffs, then the Cup, then the parade, and then I’ll be in.”

Her family and friends have been campaigning in the media on Facebook not only to get her tickets to the game, but also to wave the Bruins flag before the game starts.

“That would mean the world,” Hannah, her daughter, said. “She’s probably the most deserving person, she might be the craziest Bruins fan I’ve ever met but I think she could really fire that team up.”

When she went to get a cup of morning joe today, a giant iced coffee gave her the world.

You’ll get to see this talent firsthand next week when the Milwaukee Brewers fans come to Target Field on Monday and Tuesday.

Maybe stay off the highways those evenings, people.

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/milwaukee-playoff-game-turns-into-battle-of-beer-drinking-bros/feed/0A postman retired and a neighborhood wouldn’t let him go without some hugshttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/a-postman-retires-and-a-neighborhood-wouldnt-let-him-go-without-some-hugs/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/a-postman-retires-and-a-neighborhood-wouldnt-let-him-go-without-some-hugs/#respondFri, 24 May 2019 15:24:24 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80850Back when my now-97-year-old mother was a spry 80-year-old Yankee, she would occasionally change some light bulbs in the kitchen near the door on a fairly rickety stepladder.

Her children, of course, warned her not to do that but you can’t tell old Yankee women what to do in their own house. That’s just not how it works.

Besides, she had a plan.

“I only do it around the time the mailman comes,” she said.

Because if she’d fallen and hurt herself, the mailman would rescue her. He was the latest in generations of mail carriers who looked out for her and everyone else on their route.

Back in the day, the people who delivered the mail became the thread of a neighborhood and a big part of its life.

So I was all in when @LR_Carlson (and @atrupar) passed along this thread on Friday of one mailman spending his last day doing his part to be the daily glue in a country that is too quickly coming apart.

THREAD: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow. I went with him on his route today. pic.twitter.com/qZhUVY7Sz8

Floyd is a tall, slender, very fit 61. His job involves lots of walking, which keeps him in great shape. But he is done with the heat. In summertime, the mail truck is basically a rolling oven. Last summer, Floyd decided, would be his last. pic.twitter.com/8v7HtKlCcV

Floyd is the youngest of 4. It was his mom's idea for him to join the USPS. He's sad she's not here to see this send-off. Joyce Hardin's mother is on Floyd's route and said he totes her newspaper to the porch. "Thank you for taking care of mama, after daddy passed," she said. pic.twitter.com/8hdnKf22Xt

Floyd lives in Atlanta with his dog Gigi. It'll be a little weird to just receive mail and not deliver it anymore. "I'm just going to smile," he said. He doesn't have children, just the 500 houses worth of kids he spends 6+ hours with every day. He hopes to go to Hawaii one day. pic.twitter.com/W0RHdRvzgj

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/a-postman-retires-and-a-neighborhood-wouldnt-let-him-go-without-some-hugs/feed/01,000 Words: The faces of D-Dayhttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/1000-words-the-faces-of-d-day/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/1000-words-the-faces-of-d-day/#respondFri, 24 May 2019 13:36:11 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80835We are two weeks away from the 75th anniversary of D-Day. There are very few men left who survived the assault on the beaches of Europe.

Today, the Associated Press invited us to pause and reflect on the past by taking another long look at the present: images of the men who are still able to return to Europe for the anniversary.

It’s also a chance to ask ourselves whether we’re still worthy of their sacrifice.

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/1000-words-the-faces-of-d-day/feed/0Duluth competition flagged for plagiarismhttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/duluth-competition-flagged-for-plagiarism/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/duluth-competition-flagged-for-plagiarism/#respondFri, 24 May 2019 12:16:24 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80827Duluth’s competition for a new city flag is turning nasty.

After whittling down the competition from 195 initial submissions — we pause to note here that’s it’s amazing 195 individuals gave a rip about the Duluth city flag — to 45 semifinalists, two have been accused of plagiarism, according to the Duluth News Tribune.

This one has been “flagged.”

It’s so easy to crib flag designs. Just go to Holly Jakub’s website where she offers up an alternative to the current Minnesota state flag, and just “Duluthize” it a bit.

“Blue represents Lake Superior, the St. Louis River Estuary, and 42 named streams, as well as the sky. White represents the snow and ice of our long winter season. Green represents the landscape, rich with green space, where we live, work, and recreate. Four Pointed Star represents Duluth’s many points of light: ships at anchor, lighthouses, celestial bodies, lights along the skyline, and the sparkling ice and snow of our winter season. A compass rose evokes Duluth’s rich nautical heritage and identity as “The North”. Curve evokes our expanse of hillside, shoreline, beaches, and Lakewalk where the city and lake come together. All elements of this flag are identifiable on the hoist: while at rest, flapping in the wind, or viewed at rest. The identity of the flag is not lost when reproduced in greyscale or 1-color.”

“We will internally continue to reach out to the artists whose work is in question, and we’ll do our own research to find out if there is a plagiarism issue,” a city spokeswoman tells the News Tribune. “And if there is, then we’ll certainly bring that to the flag committee, in addition to the mayor’s office, for how they would like to move forward.”

The flag design community must be a relatively tight one for the alleged plagiarism to have been spotted.

Friday May 24, 2019
(Subject to change as events dictate. This page is updated throughout the day.)

9 a.m. – 1A with Joshua Johnson
Domestic news roundup. This week, former White House counsel Don McGahn defied a subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. We discussed the likelihood that Congress will impeach the president earlier this week. Meanwhile, we may be close to seeing the president’s financial records after rulings from two federal judges and a bill approved by New York state lawmakers. We’re also following the latest on abortion legislation around the country. Finally, CBS first reported that a ten-year old migrant girl from El Salvador died in custody at the U.S.-Mexico border last year. She was the first of six children to die soon after being released or while detained. We cover all this and more.

10 a.m.- 1A with Joshua Johnson
International news roundup. After about six weeks of voting, Indians elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a second term, representing a landslide victory. Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism and a strong commitment to national security proved to be a winning strategy with voters. What will Modi pursue with such broad support during another term? And the world leadership news certainly did not stop there. Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May’s position becomes more precarious each day. The pressure on May to quit has intensified as she tries to broker another Brexit deal. On Tuesday, the American government said it had “seen signs” that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad could be using chemical weapons, according to Reuters. Further, the U.S. called for a ceasefire as fighting spiked in northwestern Syria, the last stronghold of opposition forces. We wrap up the global news from a busy week.

Guests: Mark Landler, White House correspondent, The New York Times; Susan Glasser, staff writer, The New Yorker; Paul Danahar, Washington bureau chief of the BBC

11 a.m. – MPR News with Angela Davis
It might not seem like it, but it’s almost summer. And summer means grilling season. Cooking outside the kitchen is a great way to commune with nature, but it’s also a great way to give your dinner guests salmonella. There are some simple rules to follow when it comes to food preparation and storage.

Guests: Dr. Pritish Tosh, infectious disease researcher at Mayo Clinic and formerly of the CDC; Kim Carlton, environmental health supervisors, Minnesota Department of Health; Craig Hedberg, professor, School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.

12 p.m. – The Takeaway
Forty-four men have held the office of the presidency (Grover Cleveland is counted twice). This week’s show broadcasts from the Presidential Ideas Festival at the University of Virginia. And we’ll get a look at the evolution of the executive office.

1 p.m. – Science Friday
An outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 1,000 people in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A check-in with a healthcare worker on the ground trying to stop it. Plus a new play about climate change asks how we can best tell a story that encourages action.

2 p.m. – BBC NewsHour
The British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced June 7 as her departure date; the attempt to connect 3.3 million people who don’t have access to the internet via space; new espionage charges against Julian Assange

3 p.m. – All Things Considered
The week in politics; new political openings in Cuba; Europe’s far right online; the end of Theresa May’s government; a review of Aladdin.

6:00 p.m. – Marketplace
The high cost of tying the knot. From destination bachelor parties to dress try-on brunches, weddings these days are getting much more elaborate and pricey.

6:30 p.m. – The Daily
Three months ago, a recording of Sterling Van Wagenen, a founder of the Sundance Film Festival, appeared on an obscure website for whistle-blowers in the Mormon Church. We spoke with our colleague about the story that recording told.

7 p.m. – The World
The news was a long time coming, but British Prime Minister Theresa May has now made it official. She is stepping down early next month, her three years in the job having been consumed by the unending failure to enact Brexit. Whether May was solely to blame, or the caretaker of an impossible situation, could come more into focus after her successor picks up the challenge. The World’s Orla Barry in London explains why all eyes are on provocative Conservative politician Boris Johnson, who brought the Brexit movement to prominence in the first place.

Also today, gay rights stories from around the globe. In Taiwan, the first gay marriages have been celebrated, a week after a court made same-sex marriage legal on the island. In Brazil, a court has ruled that homophobia is illegal. And in Kenya, activists are disappointed in a ruling that could have opened up significant civil rights for LGBTQ people there. Host Marco Werman talks with Aida Holly-Nambi, a producer for the podcast AfroQueer based in Nairobi, Kenya.

And, President Trump travels to Japan with a loose agenda that includes sumo wrestling and steak dinners. The World’s Jason Margolis reports that, long before he was president, Trump’s business interests in Japan helped form his aggressively competitive approach to trade policies.

Plus, how much does a kilogram weigh, really? The answer is more complicated than you might think, as Edgar B Herwick reports from station WGBH in Boston.

8 p.m. – Fresh Air
Michael Pollan is best known for his books about food, but his latest book is about the history of psychedelic drugs, and current experiments with them in therapeutic settings—to treat depression, fear of death, and addiction. . The book also recounts his own recent personal experiments with LSD and psylocibin.

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/whats-on-mpr-news-5-24-19/feed/0The great unsolved mystery: Who is Postcard Underground?http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/the-great-unsolved-mystery-who-is-postcard-underground/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/the-great-unsolved-mystery-who-is-postcard-underground/#respondThu, 23 May 2019 20:45:42 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80815Because NewsCut lives forever on the internet, I occasionally get mail looking for help finding someone or wanting some information from a post 10 or so years ago. And over the last 12 years, we’ve been able to solve mysteries and make connections using the power of the internet for good.

On Thursday, I got another request that reminded me that we were never able to solve one mystery: who is the Postcard Underground?

We first started chasing the question in 2012, when postcards for Gary Eichten started showing up. I wrote the following on a 5×8, at that time the morning roundup of all things strange in the news.

My colleague, Alana, has presented us with a mystery that only the power of the Internet can solve.

It appears that for the last week or so, at least two postcards a day arrive for the recently retired Gary Eichten, all bearing the mark of the “Postcard Underground.”

Today’s postcards were from the same person: “Sue.”

A Google search reveals no certain answers, although the blog of a woman in New England indicates she once received the postcards. Check the signature on the top card:

There are other websites all reporting the same thing: Postcards show up from someone who obviously is paying attention to the specifics of what’s being lauded. And “Sue” is obviously behind them:

Somebody in the InterTubes knows who Sue is. Come forward!

Sue came forward. Sort of. She sent me a postcard about two months later. But she didn’t reveal that much information.

We never were able to make much progress in uncovering the brains behind the Postcard Underground after Gary Eichten’s retirement in January, when anonymous (except for first name) postcards started showing up every day.

In March 2017, Imesh Samarakoon appeared on a talk show on KPCC, the MPR sister organization in California, to talk about his effort to start an economic crisis team at UCLA for students in financial distress.

He made a logical deduction. Postcard Underground is based in St. Paul.

Based on the high concentration of Postcard Underground members in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, it seems like the organization is loosely based there. But since they have members all over the nation, they often send messages to projects all over the place.

But he struck out on the other, more obvious question: who are they? Along with how do they organize? Who makes the decision to bombard someone with nice postcards?

So he looked at the type of organizations that get the postcards.

Postcard Underground seems to be an environmentally minded group of individuals. I also suspect that the members in Minnesota are a part of Audubon Minnesota, since one of their postcards is from the Audubon, and many of the members are interested in birds (so many bird stamps!).

So I’ve taken a small step towards identifying the members of Postcard Underground. But I really wanted to nail the identity of at least one member.

He wrote that he thinks he was able to identify one member: “David” a Lutheran in Gilroy, Calif. But there the trail stopped. He never wrote another post.

Like those before me, I tried to figure out how the writers connect and communicate.

I noticed one sender from Minneapolis had included, inadvertently I think, her first and last name. I won’t out the kind writer, but her name was unique enough to turn me into a detective for about a week, leaving messages for at least half a dozen Minnesotans who are probably wondering just what’s in the Philadelphia water.

(If I did stumble on the right person, I’d love to hear from you. Maybe you’d consider letting me join the group — because who doesn’t want to be part of a secret society of kindness that cuts through the noise, especially when these days noise seems to be the country’s official language.)

And that’s where the trail ends, near the end of this blog. An unanswered mystery that allows the act to speak for itself.

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/the-great-unsolved-mystery-who-is-postcard-underground/feed/0High over Fargo, a photographer recreates an iconic imagehttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/high-over-fargo-a-photographer-recreates-an-iconic-images/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/high-over-fargo-a-photographer-recreates-an-iconic-images/#respondThu, 23 May 2019 18:34:34 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80805The ironworkers on the Block 9 construction project in Fargo, N.D., inspired a construction company supervisor to recreate history. So the firm hired local photographer Dan Francis to the honors.

"Lunch atop Block 9"I was brought onto this project to recreate the historical Lunch atop a Skyscraper image that was…

“It felt like I was traveling back 87 years and watching history unfold,” Francis tells the Fargo Forum. “I had maybe 10 minutes with them and I used about five minutes to make sure I got the shot. I had a Kilbourne Group member go down and grab that day’s Forum mostly so they had something to do with their hands. When we met with the crew in the offices, one person had a great lunchbox so I told them to bring it up as well which shows up in the middle of the image.”

(h/t: Ann Arbor Miller)

]]>http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/high-over-fargo-a-photographer-recreates-an-iconic-images/feed/0Five years after plane crash, a family retraces their son’s steps in Minnesotahttp://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/five-years-after-plane-crash-a-family-retraces-their-sons-steps-in-minnesota/
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2019/05/five-years-after-plane-crash-a-family-retraces-their-sons-steps-in-minnesota/#respondThu, 23 May 2019 16:19:23 +0000http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/?p=80803

Firefighters work to get the flames under control after a small plane crashed into a home at 731 Garden Place in Sauk Rapids, Minn., June 20, 2014. Jason Wachter | St. Cloud Times, via AP

Last week, his family made another pilgrimage to the state, to try to retrace the last month of Alexander’s life, the St. Cloud Times reports.

They were sitting in a booth at Grandma’s looking at photos Alexander took during a visit to Duluth with St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis when they realized they were sitting in the same booth. Alexander was living with Kleis and his family.

“I get comforted by that,” Jutta, his mom, said. “He’s closer. We looked at things through his eyes and tried to experience the same experience.”

When Alexander died, it had been almost a year since his family had seen him.

Alex’s family was determined to use their grief for good. The year following his death, they created the Alexander Voigt Memorial Scholarship through Youth For Understanding.

“The tragic loss didn’t change their love for the exchange program and the connections they create,” Kleis said.

Youth For Understanding is a high school exchange program that has been around since the end of World War II. Alex’s family funds the scholarship, which offers the opportunity for a high school student, preferably from St. Cloud, to spend a year as an exchange student in Germany.

The recipients are placed with host families chosen by the organization. But Alex’s family always invites the scholarship recipient to visit them in Munich for a weekend.

This fall, the fourth scholarship student will visit Germany by way of the Alexander Voigt Memorial Scholarship, “which is a beautiful thing,” Jutta said.

The Kleis family has hosted another student since Alexander’s death. He says it was hard, but it’s what Alexander would’ve wanted.